


Helpless

by QueenForADay



Series: Mercenary [10]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, F/M, Inspired by a Musical, Reader-Insert, Steve Rogers Is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 17:54:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6967210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenForADay/pseuds/QueenForADay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky is just helpless. </p><p>*Inspired by Hamilton's "Helpless"*</p>
            </blockquote>





	Helpless

**Author's Note:**

> I previously wrote Steve with Satisfied, so I decided to give Bucky his Helpless moment. This can be read without Satisfied, as this is more to do with what's happening in Bucky's mind when he looks at the Reader. 
> 
> Lines and moments are repeated in both of these parts.

He just feels safer around her.

Spending so long inside of ice and darkness, it leaves it mark on people. Being trapped in containers, but not being dead as such. He was alive that whole time. His eyes were closed, but he could still feel and hear and think. He could hear them talking – plotting and scheming about what to do next. He could hear them pacing between the containers. He could feel their eyes on him when they walked by.

He wasn’t dead, like many people believed. He was very much alive, wishing to be dead.

Getting Steve back helped. When his memories started to return to him, it helped. He was less edgy. He stopped looking around any room he was in, looking instinctively either for the window to make an escape or something that could be used as a weapon.

He still keeps to the side of rooms. Whenever gatherings of Steve’s friends would happen, he would come down and show his face, and leave maybe ten minutes later. If he had to stay for whatever reason, he stood against a wall that was near a door.

No one ever stopped him if he left though.

That night was the same thing. Steve’s friends were gathered on the porch outside. Bucky kept to the door. It was slightly better outside – there weren’t any walls to keep him in. If he had to run, he had space to run.

The door to the compound opens and a woman walks in. There’s a shout from Sam. “Sweetheart!” he hollers before darting across the living room and to the door. She laughs as he picks her up off the ground and hugs her tightly.

“I need to get away more often if I can get welcome backs like that,” she laughs, hugging Sam tightly.

He’s seen her before, but it’s always been fleeting glances. It’s different with Natasha or Wanda. He doesn’t feel for them what he feels for her. It’s something that itches at the back of his mind and he just can’t figure it out.

She’s one of Steve’s friends. He made a lot of friends since waking up in the present day.

He watches Steve hug her tightly, smiling broadly as she pulls away from him to be hugged by Natasha and Clint. She is still wearing combat gear – was she on a mission? He can’t remember anyone talking about a mission.

When all of the welcome homes are done, she eventually joins the others out on the porch. There’s something about her.

It’s something he’s only ever felt with Steve before. The security of someone’s presence. It keeps the demons away.

When he walks into the kitchen he sees Steve there. He asks him how he’s doing, and he tells the truth. Alright. It’s the only word he can really use after all that’s happened. Steve hands him a beer and he takes it. He remembers how he used to drink all of those years ago – the buzz that came with it. It doesn’t affect him anymore, like how it doesn’t affect Steve.

“So, why are you here with me and not out with Tony and the gang?”

“Too loud,” he replies. Steve knows that it’s his short answer of either I don’t want to be out there or It’s just too much. He takes a sip of beer and leans back against the cabinets.

When he looks up at Steve, he swallows when he can see the other man looking right back at him. “Can I talk to you about something?”

Steve frowns and holds his arms over his chest. “Of course you can, buddy, you know that.”

He should know that. It’s one of the many things he has to constantly be told again and again about. He has to be told every day that: yes, he can make his own breakfast if anything else doesn’t suit him, he can use the training room whenever he likes, he can absolutely stay in the living room if he doesn’t like sleeping in his room by himself (Tony is usually on one of the couches passed out anyway).

He runs his fingers through his hair. “I’m…I’m doing better than I was,” he explains, “but…I don’t know, it sounds stupid-”

“-It’s not going to be,” Steve cuts him off, “stupid was when you tried to hit on that girl with her boyfriend standing at the other end of the bar.”

A small smile tugs at the corner of his lips. He can remember that. Through the fog that settled over his mind, he can remember that. “To be fair,” he reasons, “I didn’t know she was taken.”

“She had an engagement ring on,” Steve rolls his eyes in the way he used to back in the day.

Steve leans back against the cabinets on the other side of the kitchen. So,” he crosses his arms over his chest, “What did you want to talk to me about?”

Bucky explains it to him as best as he can. Steve is looking at him warmly – the way he’s always done. “I just feel safer with her around,” Bucky rubs the back of his neck, “like how I feel with you around.”

He tries to brush it off, saying how weird it must sound, but Steve stops him. He looks over towards the porch. The team are still outside laughing loudly and talking.

“You should talk to her,” Steve tells him seriously. “If it’s someone you feel safe around, then you should talk to her.”

He knows he should. It’s been eating away at the back of his mind for a while. The way she smiles is enough to make the demons go away, at least for a little while.

Steve asks him to at least thin about it, and he nods. He claps a hand onto Bucky’s shoulder and walks out of the kitchen. Bucky’s hand tightens around the neck of the beer bottle in his hand.

He decides to walk back out of the kitchen after a few minutes. The door to the porch is wide open, and he can see the rest of the team outside gathered around a fire-pit, sprawled across couches and each other.

He sees her talking to Steve and his heart hammers against the inside of his chest. That smile that’s on her face – it never stops making him breathless. He tenses slightly, suddenly very aware of himself. It happens every so often. When he realises where he is and how he got here–

Steve hugs her and walks away towards the stairs. He watches Steve go – noticing how Natasha and Sam jump up from the couch in the living room and practically run over to him on the stairs. He’s watching him so intently that he doesn’t notice that she’s in front of him until she speaks.

“Hello Bucky,” she smiles brightly at him.

He’s speechless for a moment. He swallows the lump forming in his throat.

“Hey.”

****

**_If it takes fighting a war for us to meet  
It will have been worth it._ **

**Author's Note:**

> [My Tumblr!](http://yourqueenforayear.tumblr.com/)
> 
> If any of you would like to request something for this verse, or any other Bucky/Reader or Steve/Bucky fics, drop them into my ask box! Or if you just want to scream at me about Civil War or Captain America in general, I'm down for that too xx


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